Allow people to protect others and themselves!

At the moment the health professionals, public transport employees, teachers and in fact, the whole general public, have no means of legally protecting themselves or others in the event of a terrorist attack. With a very simple legal change that would follow Japan, Austria, Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Russia, America and many other countries, carrying specific types of pepper spray could be legalised. It could remain an offence to use a pepper spray 'unreasonably' (a concept already defined for the purposes of the self-defence law and certainly workable in a court of law) but it would mean that all of us on the front line of public services and the general public generally are not just defenceless targets waiting for the next terrorist attack. Pepper sprays cause no lasting damage but instead mean an attacker loses their ability to see clearly for a number of minutes (depending on the spray intensity and type of substance used) and so could mean the difference between an attempted terrorist attack and a mass killing.